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Google Apps Targets Enterprises With Directory Sync

By on May 1, 2009

Google today took a much needed step to target the enterprise customers by releasing Google Apps Directory Sync.
One of the biggest obstacles for businesses in the adoption of Google
Apps is the difficulty in moving from a LDAP kind of directory system.
With the release of Google Apps Directory Sync, Google is taking away
the additional burden of manually maintaining a user directory in
the Google Apps. Now, it is possible to use the existing directory
service for user related account information.

This gives exactly
what some enterprises want when they move to SaaS applications. It takes the
user information from the LDAP service and performs an one way
synchronization with Google Apps. This way, the data on the LDAP server
is untouched, thereby, offering the security expected by enterprise
customers. Since this synchronization utility runs inside the
enterprise firewall, there is no access to the LDAP server data from
outside of the enterprise network. If the Google Apps account have
groups feature enabled, then it is possible to map users, groups, etc.
using the same rules used inside the enterprises. The utility also
includes extensive tests and simulation to ensure reliability.

This
easy to use utility is available for Google Apps Premier edition,
Education edition and Partner edition. It supports LDAP servers like
Microsoft Active Directory, Lotus Domino, other Open LDAP servers,
etc.. The utility is available for Windows, Solaris and Linux.

Though
this is not enough to sway the enterprises towards SaaS based world, it
is a solid step in the right direction. It is not just Google but other SaaS players are
also getting serious with their enterprise strategy. I have been
talking to a few SaaS vendors and some of them are finding some neat
ways to fit SaaS applications inside the existing enterprise
architecture. It will be interesting to see how these tactics play out and whether they can convince the enterprise players to make a move.

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Director, OpenShift Strategy at Red Hat. Founder of Rishidot Research, a research community focused on services world. His focus is on Platform Services, Infrastructure and the role of Open Source in the services era. Krish has been writing @ CloudAve from its inception and had also been part of GigaOm Pro Analyst Group. The opinions expressed here are his own and are neither representative of his employer, Red Hat, nor CloudAve, nor its sponsors.

4 responses to “Google Apps Targets Enterprises With Directory Sync”

  1. Saqib
    Saqib May 4, 2009 at 4:22 pm |

    Does anyone have a list of large Lotus Notes shops that are migrating to Google Apps?

  2. Krish
    Krish May 4, 2009 at 9:17 pm |

    Not sure what your requirements are. Check out

    http://www.cloudsherpas.com/

    http://binarytree.com/website/msg/home.nsf

    Here is a DIY tutorial

    http://doctrina.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/lotus-notes-to-google-apps-migration/

    You can find more vendors at Google App Marketplace http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/

  3. Saqib Ali
    Saqib Ali May 5, 2009 at 2:30 pm |

    Kris, Thanks for the links.

    I googled around for more information about this, but didn’t find anything concrete – just bits and pieces of information, here and there.

    So far I have been able to identify the following two large shops that are migrating from LN to Google Apps:
    1) Hamilton Beach; and
    2) University of Nebraska.

    Would like to hear from other institutions that are migrating from Lotus Notes.

  4. Krishnan Subramanian
    Krishnan Subramanian May 5, 2009 at 3:41 pm |

    Saqib,

    Sorry I thought you were asking about outsourced partners to do the job. I will keep an eye for such case studies and add it here if I come across any.